The Beast Within
by fufulupin
Summary: A little one-shot that opens with insanity and closes with some thoughts from Moony. Meant to stir a bit of pity for our favorite young werewolf. Please enjoy and review!


Disclaimer: Don't own a thing, it's all J.K.'s. Ooh, and say it with me, folks: July 16th. –grins- Enjoy the little one-shot, and please review if you can find the time.

The world is an interesting place when you've got friends, a semi-girlfriend, and are at an amusing dance in an equally-entertaining school. I never thought I would be this lucky, to be in first year and somehow manage to have all that I do. Sirius would call me a great loony prat if he could hear my thoughts, but it's true. Well, mostly true. I do have one great, terrible secret…one that makes my seemingly-amazing life nearly unbearable at times. One that can take the most fantastic of moments, with the most fantastic of people, and force me to run from it all.

I was uncomfortable with the idea of a dance, at first. The only reason I even bothered to break what Sirius so kindly referred to as my annual date with the library is because James threatened to curse my cauldron if I didn't gather my courage and ask Marie out. Being as I have enough problems with Potions, I wasn't in the mood to defy him.

Asking Marie to accompany me was sheer torture. Being eleven years old, I hadn't had a crush before, much less the ability to act on one. Sirius and James both tried to help me (the stupid gits); James insisted that candy worked best, but Sirius was more inclined to try something flashier. Something that Marie (and the school) would not forget.

Why, oh why, did I ever agree? You would think that a person of my general intelligence would have realized that Sirius' cheerful mumble of "Mel, drums arf reasi ro charm" (around a not-so-healthy mouthful of chocolate, of course) meant hell.

Still, I didn't manage to catch on until later that evening when my hair-brained best friends hauled me onto a makeshift stage (in actuality, Gryffindor's long table in the Great Hall). James, ignoring my blushing and stammering, shoved a guitar into my hands and commanded me to follow his and Sirius' lead.

Lead? What lead? I wanted to kill myself. I couldn't stand being on-stage, I wasn't at all musically-inclined, and to make matters worse, the entire school could see me. I could even catch the faintest glimpse of a grinning Dumbledore; he was sitting back in his chair, looking as though he had been in on whatever idiot scheme the infamous Black/Potter duo had come up with.

I shot a terrified look at Peter, who was seated behind a set of drums (_now_ I understood Sirius' garbling from earlier); he gave an enormous smile and a shrug. Great. _That_ made me feel better.

James was starting to play a bass guitar, a broad grin making his eyes twinkle as he nodded for me to do the same. Trying to keep a feral snarl off my features, I made a play for the strings, simply to humor him. Imagine my complete shock when actual chords came out of my actions!

Sirius winked, twirling a microphone in his hands. He did a little dance (looked like a ruddy idiot in my eyes, but the crowd seemed to love it) and squinted out at the mob before him.

"Is there a Marie in the house?" he demanded loudly. I winced even as what seemed to be twelve-hundred hands shot into the air. Sirius grinned. "Let's narrow it down slightly, shall we? Is there a Ravenclaw blonde, with midnight eyes and a penchant for poetry in the audience?"

I saw her, blushing the most vibrant crimson, lift her hand as all the others dropped. Sirius nodded happily.

"Ah, there's the woman of the hour! My boy Remus here has got quite the proposition for you, m'dear."

My fingers faltered on the strings of my charmed guitar. My knees trembled. Bile rose in my throat.

"You see," my idiot Marauder counterpart continued gleefully, "Remus—brilliantly sweet fellow that he is—is looking for a date to the upcoming ball! And it seems you are quite the lucky lass; he's managed to tear those lovely chocolate eyes away from those damned books of his long enough to stare at you."

The bile rose further and I heard my blood pumping in my ears. My lunch threatened to return in front of just about all of Hogwarts. Several Slytherins were snickering openly; I tried to ignore them.

"So, what do you say? He may not be a wild man, but I'm sure Jamesy and I can have him trained up a bit for you by Friday night, if you like."

_Going to kill him…going to _murder_ him…maim…destroy…bludgeon…mutilation…loss of those damned limbs, one by bloody one…_

Marie's blush never lessened. I turned to Sirius, completely prepared to throw what was probably only the second punch of my life at his smug, idiot face, when her voice broke my horrified anger.

"O-okay."

It was quiet, only two syllables, but it made my heart soar. I swiveled on the spot.

"Really?" I squeaked stupidly. The world spun and the next thing I knew, my back was on solid wood and Sirius was waving his wand over my face.

"How many wands, Remus?"

I blinked blearily. "Two? Seven? Marie?"

He chuckled. "No worries, ladies and gents, it's just the shock that got to him. Poor lad's never had a girlfriend before, it seems, we'll just drag him up to the Common Room…don't look so anxious, dearie, you'll have your date on Friday."

He hoisted me up and motioned for James to help. Then, with a wave of his wand to banish the instruments (and I took a short moment to appreciate the fact that he had only used them for background music and not an actual concert) and a jaunty nod to the Head table, he started dragging me off.

* * *

Marie turned out to be lovely company. She was as smart as I was and incredibly funny and I was suddenly thrilled with my friends all over again for helping me the way they had. Granted, I had spent the remainder of the week hiding from Sirius, who was demanding repayment for his Good Samaritan moment, and I had very nearly lost my breakfast and lunch both to nervousness as I worriedly dressed for the evening. Upon reaching the dance, however, and finding Marie there with good spirits and a wide smile…

You would expect me to be in amazing spirits myself at this point. Yet, somehow, I wasn't feeling my best. I felt weak, despite the great amount of food I was consuming, and Marie was giving me concerned looks.

Then, around 8, just as the enchanted ceiling's sun was nearly set, I remembered.

"Are you all right?" Marie asked, laying a gentle hand on my arm. "Perhaps we should go outside..."

"No!" I yelped. She frowned and I added, "I can't...much too tired...I think I should see the nurse."

She smiled understandingly and I couldn't help but grin back. I gave her a quick kiss on the cheek (oh, what courage!) and excused myself, offering a reassuring glance at Peter, who was watching me edgily. "I'm fine," I assured him in passing before fairly running from the Great Hall.

As I bolted for the secret passage that would lead to refuge, I silently cursed my memory. How could I forget that tonight was that of a full moon? How could I have put my friends--and Marie--in danger like that??

I scurried along the passage and slipped though the door to my own private shack. Locking it behind me, I shucked off my dress robes and crawled into a corner in my white tee shirt and boxers. I curled into as small a ball as I could and began to shiver.

None of my friends know what happens to me night after night, whenever the moon grows big and haunts the night sky. None of my friends know the nightmare that is my life.

Between feeling suddenly cold and being set ablaze, I trembled and felt my flesh begin to crawl and itch. My spine jerked and my body spasmed with it as I began to change. I let out a scream of pain that quickly became a howl as my body was covered in thick black hair and claws grew where my fingernails had once been. My face pushed outward and, between the sickening cracking sounds, I continued to roar in agony.

When the transformation was complete, and I was a fully-fledged wolf, I began to wildly pace the floor, growling at shadows. My human mind had shrunk to the back of my consciousness and all that remained was an animal. I lurched at the door, roaring and hoping with my wolf-brain that it would open and food would be on the other side.

Wolves are cunning beasts, however, and my mind soon registered that this, like all the other nights, would be without prey. I crawled back into my corner and sat there, biting at my front leg until the sweet smell of blood filled my sensitive nose.

The next morning, I underwent the nightmarish pain of becoming a biped again and, ignoring my bleeding wrist, pulled my robes on again and slipped back through the passage into the castle.

I am a werewolf. Only Dumbledore knows it, and I plan to keep it that way. If anybody else finds out what I really am...nobody will be safe. Not me. Not my friends. Nobody.


End file.
